


Routine

by AnotherMelancholicWriter



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Lost Love, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 22:19:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15180581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnotherMelancholicWriter/pseuds/AnotherMelancholicWriter
Summary: WOL musing's while visiting Haurchefant's memorial. Spoilers from patch 4.3.





	Routine

You braced yourself for the cold winds of Coerthas Central Highlands by drawing the hood of the fur lined cloak further down. It offered little protection from the chill, but you wore it mainly as protection from recognition. You held the reins of the black chocobo tightly as you made your way north of Camp Dragonhead towards Providence Point, thoughts of him exploding one after another in your head. He had given you Obsidian, who he raised since birth as a gesture of your bond. It was your only link to him. The aetheric energies within the bird felt a little bit like him, no doubt residue of the years of training.

The snow crunched underfoot as you slid off the chocobo and rustled through his saddlebag. It had become your routine, polished after so many visits to his memorial. You spread your sleeping bag before the headstone and rustled through your pockets to find the flowers you picked especially for him.

“I’m back.” You gently placed the three stalks on the ground before him. The pale blue petals stood in stark contrast to the white snow and the lilies next to them. Francel had already trekked here today. You would be alone in your sorrow. “These are from Yanxia.”

There was no reply, only the howling wind against your face. You would never again hear his ever cheerful ‘Welcome back’. You knew this, which was the reason you avoided the Central Highlands. To see Camp Dragonhead and anticipate the ‘Welcome back’ that would never come was too much to bear. It was only when you visited him that you endured that heart wrenching expectation. 

The notion of time did not matter since his death. How many times did you visit his empty grave? How many moons had passed? Everyone was moving on, busy with politics in Ishgard, or fighting in revolutions to the east or brokering peace. How is it that the pain of losing him had not dulled, but gotten sharper with each breath? When it was unbearable, you knew you needed him. You visited him here even though the sight of the city that did not deserve him and that broken shield made you want to rip your heart out from your bosom to ease that pain. However much it tore you apart, it helped in the end.

“I guess it all started with a letter from Alphinaud asking me to meet him in Kugane…” you begin recounting the start of that last adventure in Doma. You spoke of the negotiations, the relationship between Gosetsu and Tsuyu and that of her adoptive family. What haunted you was after the battle with the primal that Yotsuyu summoned. You unburdened yourself to his grave of the macabre tableau you were yet again helpless to stop.

“Her need for vengeance stayed with her until the end and as much I loathed the person she was, I cannot stop replaying her death in my mind. I told her that Tsuyu deserved a better fate. The reprehensible things that she did were unforgivable, yet I weep for all that she lost during her short, miserable life. She died with thoughts of Gosetsu…” Your tears burned against your cheeks. All your dark thoughts you kept in check under a mask of calm and stoicism poured out like it always did when you visited him.

 When he was alive, you never broke down in front of him. He always sensed what you needed to put your mind at ease; a joke, a provocation, a cup of cocoa next to a warm fire. He kept the darkness at bay. Even if the world saw the Warrior of Light, Slayer of Gods, he saw the person beneath. The one whose shoulders slumped under the weight of the world. His overzealous, though utterly sincere, belief in you spurred you on to become a better person. You were a better person because of him. You could take down primals and dragons and tyrants only because of his belief. The hope of others weighed you down while his belief gave you the strength to shoulder that hope. And without him to reassure you, their hopes dragged you further into darkness.

“Will I die like her, full of fury and regret? A life in service to others is a hard one and it will end in service to others. Will I die on someone else’s quest, bearing someone else’s expectations? Will it ever end, their constant requests, demands, with their pleas of ‘only you can do this’ and ‘it’s for the good of the realm’? It might be for the good of the realm, but it’s not good for me! Why do you all have to die? Why is it everything that is for the good of the realm a sacrifice that I have to bear, a sacrifice that is paid with the blood of my friends?”

The thought of all the ones you lost from the moment you arrived at the Waking Sands after defeating Titan to find the corpses of your friends and comrades too many to count, too many scars on your heart that it was less of a heart a more of an amalgamation of scars healed over and scarred again. You could have saved them if you arrived earlier, you should have saved them. You should have blocked Papalymo’s magic. You could have saved him if the two of you wielded the staff. You should have saved him from the wound that broke his shield. You could have taken the blow as it was intended. He wouldn’t be dead and you wouldn’t have to live in a world where he was not. All that you knew was he would be alive if it wasn’t for you.

Broken sobs echoed through the air.

“Will I become like Zenos if I lose more of my companions? Will I become him if I cast them aside? Is everything I’m doing leading me down that road? Fighting strong enemies, getting vengeance and justice, feeling accomplished because of it and doing it all over again on another quest for another cause?” You thought of Zeno’s death when you thought of him. “He said we were alike…we could have been friends in another life. Zenos didn’t have friends… and I start to wonder if I have any as well. They constantly ask and ask for the impossible and I do it because who else would? Is that friendship? Have they given me anything in return except their crushing hope and expectation that they can count on me for the impossible? Could I have saved him too? ”

You sat looking at the blurred headstone through your tears, cold as ice in the frozen highlands. “My dear friend, what would you say if you were here? Never again will I hear your voice, never again will I see those eyes filled with love and admiration, never again will I ever get the chance to tell you how much you meant to me, how much you still mean to me…”            

You sighed heavily, calming the choking sobs. You touched the headstone gently before wiping away the last of your tears. It had been cathartic. It always was. You stood up, a small smile playing on your face. “You’d tell me ‘no more tears’ and that you know that I’ll keep going even though it will be hard. You’d say that I’ll triumph in the end of whatever came my way. You’d look at me with those eyes of yours, the ones with so much love, and say that when I find myself at the end of another struggle, only to find that it’s not enough, you’d be there. You would swear to me that you’ll be there.”

You rolled up the sleeping pack and packed it neatly back into Obsidian’s saddlebag. Your hands lingered on the chocobo’s feathers, ruffling it playfully, concentrating on the feel of his aether.

“I should rest up. Tend to my wounds. With my luck, I’m sure Alphinaud will be in need of rescue soon.” You took one last look at his grave. “You’ll always be here for me, won’t you? Until next time, my love.”

Those last words hung in the air as you dissipated into the aether, off to seek a new dawn, to honor him.


End file.
